Take a break, pack your things, walk away

If anyone was wondering - indeed, if anybody is still reading this blog apart from me - the relative dearth of posts in the run-up to the festive season is due to the fact that I am very busy getting things done before I go back to Australia for Christmas and New Year. That nothing much is happening that's worth reporting on is another factor, too. In any case, normal service is likely to resume in January. Häid jõule ja head uut aastat!

Can you even feel your heartbeat in this senseless city, babe?

In news everyone needed to know, SL Õhtuleht reports that pop tart Charlene has been telling celebrity trash mag Just! that she is so obsessed by high heels that she is never without a pair of stilettos, even at home.

"I know it's not normal, but the first thing I do when I get out of bed in the morning is slip on a pair of stilettos with 10 cm heels and straight away I feel fantastic," revealed the one-time Eurolaul singer, in an article charmingly titled MTV reporter wears fuck-me heels around the house. "People have even said to me I don't know how to walk in anything less!"

Underscoring the wild side of the starlet's nature, and her love of 'extreme experiences', the piece - whose accompanying photo reveals she has as much fashion sense as ever - goes on to talk about Charlene's adventures in the Far East, where she once let an elephant sit on her. "Oh, that was cool! Such an amazing massage. And I didn't break a single rib!"

To witness one of Charlene's (and the nation's) most extreme experiences - her two minutes and fifty-eight seconds of fame during the 2004 national selection for the Eurovision Song Contest - visit https://www.etvpluss.ee/saated.aspx?id=791. Mind, you'll have to pay 6 kroons for the privilege.

Revolting

Edgar Savisaar is to face a mass demonstration outside City Hall on Friday in protest at his proposed 150% hike on land tax. Which is not to say he will address them, but rather that if he happens to be there and looks out the window, he'll see a rather large crowd of people calling for his resignation.

Gunnar Stahl, the organiser of the rally, has been behind a letter-box drop urging residents of Tallinn to rise up against their mayor, albeit in a very calm and dignified way in which their displeasure is expressed through their presence and their placards - which are sure to reflect the general opinion that the plan stinks more than the city's sewers, which any revenue generated through the rate rise would be designed to improve.

Though espousing a peaceful protest, Stahl is using fighting words. "Our demonstration will go ahead as scheduled unless Savisaar scraps the plan by 13 December at the latest - and apologises to the nation on the 9 o'clock news that night for the mistakes he has made!" Here here.

She works hard for the money

In yet another Eurostat report, Estonia has ended up on the podium once again - albeit this time for a good reason. It has taken the bronze in the race to see which member state employs the most women.

Only beaten to the top spot by Sweden and Slovenia, Estonia registered unemployment among 'working-age' women (aged 25-54 for the purposes of this survey) in 2006 of just 14.3%, almost 10% lower than the EU average. The country scored even better in the 55-64 range, coming second.

Unfortunately, on the back of this good-for-equal-opportunities news comes the revelation in a different report of the stark contrast that remains between the amount women in Estonia are paid for what they do and the amount men are paid for doing the same thing: on average, female workers receive 28% less.

Add to this the findings of another report again (this one from Eurofound) that simply working in Estonia doubles your risk of occupational health problems compared to other EU countries and perhaps the country doesn't have all that much to crow about: they might have more than the average number of women in work, but they are likely to receive a third less pay for what they do than the men folk and twice as likely to do themselves an injury in the process.

Borderline

Latvian president Valdis Zatlers and Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves will come together to mark the two countries' accession to the Schengen zone on 21 December at the Valga/Valka border crossing, where they will perform the ceremonial removal of the barrier dividing the two cities and countries.

"Taking into account the shared history of our cities (dating back 720 years - Ed.) and the partnership we share today, removing the physical barrier between them bears enormous significance for the future," said Valga mayor Ivar Unt. "With the border gone, the opportunities for our two countries to interact and work together will be even greater."

Alo vanishing on 21 December will be surly border guards in their boxes at Terminals A through D in the Port of Tallinn for ferries leaving for and arriving from Finland and Sweden (and any other Schengen countries, which in this case is to say Germany). Perhaps they'll all be packed off to the eastern front, where border crossings with Russia are, conversely, to be reinforced.

The Estonian jet-set will have to exercise a little more patience, however, as Schengen passport-free fun times for all at Tallinn (and, er, Kuressaare) Airport are not scheduled to be introduced until March - giving new members much needed extra time to complete the required terminal renovations.

Depressing realisation

SL Õhtuleht today has an interview with Finnish historian Martti Turtola, who claims that the view of Estonia as poor cousin in his country has disappeared almost entirely without trace.

"There may well have been people who looked down their noses at Estonia before, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but not any more. It has come on so rapidly that everyone ought to be green with envy."

The historian says that the Finns have in fact learnt a thing or two from their southern neighbours. "Mostly to do with their lifestyle," he explains. "Finns are a very serious bunch. I lived in Estonia for four years and I realised that while our histories are similar, for some reason Estonians are much happier."

If that's the case, what does it say about Finns?

http://www.sloleht.ee/index.aspx?id=257431

Who's stitching up who?

The Northern Estonian Regional Hospital has complained to Eesti Päevaleht Online that the foreigners who scarper before paying for the medical services they have to keep giving them are causing them headaches of their own.

“The problem with Johnny Foreigner,” says hospital board member Eve Karmo, “is that he's generally shipped to our door by ambulance with nothing on him to tell us who he is and in no fit state to tell us himself.”

Karmo singles out a very particular kind of foreigner as being of the troublesome variety: “These English lads who come here, waste all of their money on goodness knows what kind of 'entertainment', fall arse over tit and get sent to us. We stitch them up, they disappear and the only thing we can put on the unpaid bill is 'foreigner', or at best 'British citizen'.”

Karmo says that even if they do manage to make out a name, very few visitors from abroad who are brought to the hospital have their EU health insurance card on them or anything else indicating that they are insured, assuming they are in the first place. In the case of the other major problem group for the hospital - Estonia's eastern neighbours - they are unlikely to have any, as they are often paid in brown paper envelopes.

While praising embassies for the help they provide in identifying these shameless stealers of health services, Karmo would much rather the assistance wasn't required in the first place. She advises all Estonian travellers (presumably including those planning on spending all of their time getting pissed and ending up in hospital) to stock up on health insurance whenever they go abroad, even if it is within the EU.

“Your health insurance card will cover first aid, but not much else. If you're halfway up a mountain skiing somewhere and take a tumble and have to be airlifted to Estonia flat on your back, things could get quite expensive.”

http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/410335

Please note: translations of direct quotes in this article may be slightly more colourful than the originals.